Shatter the Mirror, a naruto fanfic

A/N: This one-shot was written for a kakusaku gift exchange on LiveJournal. It's my first fic on quite some time, and for the Naruto fandom, so I'm very curious as to how this'll be received.

Please remember to read and review! Much love! =]

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Shatter the Mirror

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I watched impatiently as the second hand laughed at me, mercilessly ticking away each second that could have been spent in tight-lipped confession – the lesser of two evils, it seemed.

Why, of all people – of all the 3.35 billion males wandering the Earth for whom I could have fallen… why did it have to be him?

It seemed that Fate had designed him to be specifically out of my reach – morally and tangibly. My heart raced feverishly under his masked gaze, his words stoking flames I'd carelessly allowed to coil beneath my eager flesh, but the fact remained that he was nearly twice my age. A bottomless chasm separated my sensei and I.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Heart under key and lock.

"Haruno?"

The snapping of a fragile thread, blood rushing to my cheeks and an electric shock of heat rippling through every cell and sinew… did he have any idea what he did to me?

"Hatake-sensei?"

"Perhaps you could tell us what it is that you find so fascinating outside."

Silence. Damn it all! Any other day I would have a quick, saucy reply. I now simply stared back at him, my tongue seeming to dissolve in my mouth whenever words formed themselves uncertainly.

Sensei didn't seem to notice; he had already continued with his lesson on symbolism in literature, his voice seeming to caress any words allowing him to speak about his favorite subject.

I tried valiantly to pay attention to the subject of his lecture rather than simply his honeyed voice, but soon I found myself falling into a lulling daydream, imagining my name whispered in his familiar tenor, a sigh of pleasure, hissing in my ear lust-glazed words only shared between lovers when their heartbeats had sped to a synchronous hum and their bodies almost melted together…

The bell cruelly dispelled the golden haze of illusion.

Cursing quietly under my breath, I gathered my things, grateful that I would only endure these hardly appropriate thoughts for two more days, until winter vacations began and Sensei transferred to a different university, safely out of reach of my ravenous imagination.

The realization struck a harsh chord in me, physically painful like the sound of broken machinery attempting to function: I would not see my sensei after these two days were up. My carriage would become a rotting pumpkin, my prince searching for the woman with the golden slipper – although, if I were honest with myself, I imagined that Sensei would search for a lover rather than a bride.

It was thoughts like this that at times made me question why I cared for him as recklessly as I did, why I'd transgressed the line between elder and younger, teacher and pupil. He was unabashed almost to the point of being lecherous, taking advantage of his good looks and inherent charm to flirt with almost any faculty member that had breasts and a weakness for the supposedly silent type. While the class studied the occasional outlines he would hand out he would pull out a familiarly small novel and read quietly, using his hands discreetly to hide the title – unaware that "Icha Icha" would always peek out from above his fingertips. He was flighty and unconventional, considering lectures a prime opportunity to incite the class into heated debates that, while entertaining, left us devoid of any knowledge he would inevitably include on later tests.

What I didn't know about him was what I craved to understand, things engulfed by the chasm between us. Maddening or not, I wonder why he always covered his face – devastatingly handsome as it was – with a mask, why his smiles seemed to always have the bitter lacquer of sadness.

These questions haunted my waking moments and teased my dreams – the most innocuous of thoughts would become another thread in the twisted coil of want which ran through me: the insolvable mystery of his thoughts intertwined with the faint lingering scent of him – woodsy cologne and a tangy natural musk – and the rich tenor of his voice. I wanted to know everything – his wants, his fears; his untold needs and desires that, as his kouhai, I was forbidden to know.

I closed my eyes, hoping vainly that shutting out the present image of my sensei would somehow prevent others from rushing eagerly to the forefront of my thoughts. Even before my curiosity and fondness had alchemized I had been memorizing his appearance, deriving a then-unfamiliar pleasure – how strangely pure and motiveless! – from it. Even then I had an intense appreciation for the modest symmetry of features not hidden by his enigmatic mask. The eye he left uncovered seemed strangely deceptive; whereas most people seemed to have eyes that were either completely open or covered by a thin curtain of distrust, his seemed to prop a mirror in front of a locked door, allowing you only to see yourself or otherwise an impenetrable entrance.

Countless days I had spent trying to encounter a breech, or perhaps to find when lock and reflection were finally removed. Sensei rarely seemed to notice or preoccupy himself with the attempted break-in, at first - whether deliberately or intentionally he always avoided my gaze.

As time wore on, however, his carefully orchestrated nonchalance cracked. Searching, searching - I'd hardly noticed how my gaze had began to linger on him longer than necessary, how for reprieve I would drink in the sound of his voice and wonder whether my name would be whispered in a low murmur or a near-shrill cry if ever given names were spoken between us, or to how effortlessly graceful his movements were despite a personality that would suggest otherwise; I couldn't imagine Sensei as a dancer, enamored with the varieties of form, or as an actor carefully attuned to every nuance of locomotion, but I could not think of another feasible reason behind his unusually calculated gestures. I'd almost stopped searching for the flaw in security, finding pleasure in the landscape surrounding the fortress.

Then it happened.

The class was spending time with noses buried in books and fingers clacking away furiously on the portable computers most students brought with them. Sensei, as usual, used the spare time to peruse one of his favorite Icha Icha novels, occasionally glancing at the class to ensure that the quiet was one of good conduct rather than well-organized secrecy. Once more I'd been gazing on my Sensei in a fashion that could only be considered intrusive, when his eyes finally met mine and locked unwaveringly. Pure electricity seared my skin, rent a tear in the careful fabric of my control - my rationale and objective interest shattered. The desire I had invested in unlocking those infuriatingly withdrawn eyes constricted into a white-hot ball of unadulterated desire for the one who held the lock. Sensei was no longer reduced into a mysterious professor out of my reach, but simply male, and I female, and what I felt for him was indelible in all its horror and despicability. I wanted him, every fiber and sinew, every breath and word.

Sensei did not look away; he held my gaze as I held his, and I wondered whether Sensei felt the same blistering heat that coursed through my veins. My breaths seemed to congeal, becoming difficult to take in and release. Sensei's eyes... raw, a bleeding wound, the blinding brilliance of meeting the sun's noontime gaze, sweat-glazed lovers embracing together feverishly in a humid, lightless room without windows.

He had stripped away the mirror, the door, as well as the surrounding walls. I could see Sensei curled within himself, his face filthy and streaked clean with saline secrets; I saw him drive himself into countless faceless beauties of mere viscera and hormones, only to extricate himself hopelessly when he found the nothingness he'd come to expect. I saw loneliness, hopelessness, need, his constant concubines; I saw a vial in his trembling hands, mixed with blood, sex, regret, laced with nicotine, caffeine, honey arsenic and nightshade, a pure poison he nursed like a desperate child.

Here is what you've wanted to see, he seemed to say - I could see it in the way he moistened his lips in a way reminiscent of some hot-blooded youth trying to contain his aggression. Here is what you've wanted to see - are you satisfied?

With that instant he casually returned to his novel, as though the entire exchange had never occurred.

I reeled - my breaths had seemed to congeal, neither coming nor going. I couldn't pull my eyes away from him, this time from a near-painful juxtaposition of desire, curiosity, pain. Vainly I hoped I would get the privilege once more during the class period, but Sensei's eyes remained resolutely fixed onto his novel.

Every day after that, the same phenomenon occurred. Sometimes it was a brief glance - for that's all propriety would allow us, most days. While lecturing to the class he would meet my gaze and hold it for only briefly longer than would constitute a normal glance; most students were too absorbed in typing out the lecture to notice the anomaly. If I had expected the electric flame that coiled between us to fade, I was terribly mistaken - the briefest flicker of his was like a hot breath that incited the fire to lick at my sanity, a playful nip of the earlobe full of promise and innuendo.

Yesterday I had been caught off-guard by him, it being one of the few times I'd gazed outside rather than at him – his gaze had never sought mine without it being immediately returned. Surprisingly he'd noticed the change, his comment confirming this.

Could you tell us what it is you find so fascinating outside?, he'd said aloud, his eyes sharing what he wouldn't have dared vocalize.

Have you finally given up? Are you done trying to pry into my thoughts?

I couldn't tell whether my brief distraction had relieved or bothered him, and the uncertainty had kept me up for the majority of last night. I'd tossed and turned in my sleep, wondering how much his knowledge, by now, of my fascination with him would prove tense.

Today was another timed writing period – after having given a lengthy lecture on symbolism, he wanted us to analyze one of the bawdier poems he'd had us analyze, assuming that perhaps the raw pleasure in reading it would prompt enough interest in writing to produce decent results.

He scribbled the start time on the board and slid into his chair, producing a familiarly-colored novel to read while we wrote. As soon as my pencil touched the paper I knew that whatever I would manage to write would be garbage, at best – I was too damned distracted. I wrote whatever reasonably logical thoughts I could pluck from my thoughts, fruitlessly trying to ignore the fiery electricity of his gaze.

The heat became a burn, the burn a white-hot numbness that seemed to obliterate coherency, focus, self, until desire and impulse became all I had in my capacities. Hesitantly I raised my eyes to his and saw hunger – hunger. In them I saw desperate want, shame, guilt, "I've never been so disgusted with myself." In his eyes I saw what he must have seen for the past several weeks when he looked at mine.

Whatever it is I wanted with him, he yearned for it just as badly.

I tore my eyes away from his, habitually nibbling on the eraser while trying to sort out this new turn of events. I had expected anger, frustration – and had seen them. Though in different doses and types, most of his students had seen these two emotions play subtly across his face when he encountered either a cheeky or a lazy student; such emotions were harmless and easy to ignite and subsequently extinguish. What I had not expected was that these emotions would run so close to his core – a laceration cutting tauntingly at bone – and would be directed at himself. The unadulterated hunger I'd seen had caused something within me to stir; such raw hunger would have been considered lascivious had it not been reciprocated.

I wrote hurriedly as he collected the papers, scribbling hurriedly at the top of my paper, hoping anxiously that no other students would bear witness to it.

We can't keep going on like this. This has to end – you already know my feelings. The choice is yours.

When he came to my seat, I handed him my paper, carefully measuring the time I looked at him so that it would be merely friendly. He seemed to have reconstructed some of the mirror – he smiled in return to my own, giving a cool "thank you".

The remainder of the class passed with mind-numbing slowness.

I watched the seconds tick, this time the second hand taking its sweet time completing each revolution, a year in clock time, and indeed each minute felt like an eternity compressed into torturous seconds. I noticed the minute flutter of Sensei's hair as the circulated air caressed his hair, almost seeming to tease the one person in the room who wondered at its texture. I heard the dull scrape of graphite against paper, sometimes almost like a hiss, perhaps a sigh of pleasure as thoughts became words, words into sentences, sentences into ideas. I saw with perfect clarity the glossy sheen of Sensei's prized novel, his slightly dirty fingers vainly hiding its title.

Cruel shatter, bell ringing, heart racing.

The students gathered their things and flooded out of the room, myself about to do the same with more than a little disappointment. Sensei hadn't even glanced at the paper.

"Haruno."

I turned, wondering if perhaps my overactive imagination was being particularly playful. Sensei held out my paper, looking cautiously at the students who had looked curiously.

"There's something I'd like to discuss about your paper, if you don't mind," he said politely, perhaps more than necessary. Seeing that there was nothing worth staying to watch, the other students continue to leave, Sensei and I the only ones remaining in the now-monstrously large auditorium.

"I wanted to ask you about this."

He looked down pointedly at the note I'd written just minutes ago. I followed his gaze, already feeling my cheeks begin to burn.

I tried to speak, my mouth suddenly feeling dry and my throat rough as though I'd swallowed sand.

"U-um… well, you see – "

"I want to know what exactly you think 'this' is," he said curtly, taking a step closer in the distance I'd subconsciously put between us. I gulped nervously, feeling the palms of my hands begin to tingle with moisture. I sighed, trying to steady my breath.

"This. Us. Y-You can't tell me you haven't noti –"

"'Haven't noticed'? You give me doe-eyes for weeks on end, not giving me a moment's break, and you think I haven't noticed?"

His uncovered eye narrowed, and I knew from the shift in his mask that his lips had pursed into a near-sneer.

"Can't you find someone your own age to bat your eyes at?" he asked, his voice suddenly cold - had I not seen the same passion in his eyes that I know he's seen in my own, I would have faltered, have shrunk away in humiliation and run away as fast as my legs could allow.

But I had seen it. I was young, but I knew passion when I saw it, and as much as Sensei would deny it and attempt to place the blame for this illicit desire on me, he and I knew that we were both equally guilty.

"No, I won't – the people my own age are not the ones who have been lusting after someone half their age."

Sensei flinched, turning his head a fraction of a second too late to avoid my noticing the change; I immediately regretted my words. I may have felt the adolescent guilt of liking one's teacher, but Sensei's desire for me was a transgression against multiple ethical, professional, and moral boundaries that, relevant or not, Sensei had promised by default to uphold.

I took a step closer, reaching tentatively for his hand, the spark of a glance igniting into an inferno at the touch; amidst the want I felt sense of bemused pleasure when I found them rough as I'd imagined they'd be. He did nothing to stop me; he was perfectly motionless except for the slight catch in his otherwise rhythmic breaths. I ran my fingertips over the back of his hand, feeling the scars and burns that freckled his skin. I felt my heart tug in concern, immediately wishing I could have done something to diminish them, to soften the almost bloody red color of his scars into a more placid pink.

"Sensei, where did you – ?"

He did not speak as he wordlessly reached for my hand, gently placing it on his cheek and closing his eyes from the touch. I could feel the warmth from both his cheek and the hand that held mine willingly captive, a catalyst to the already feverish coil of heat that wanted him violently and peacefully, a paradox of loving lust.

He finally opened his eyes, and for once I was able to meet his gaze without surreptitiousness, without having to limit how much was said lest anyone intercept our voiceless exchange. Even as the distance between us closed and his eyes grew steadily more intense, no one was there to see.

No one but us saw how he reached for my face, cradled in his hands delicately as though I could break at any moment like the most fragile of chinaware, how he pulled me desperately closer to him, crushing to his warm body – all while I marveled how perfectly I seemed to fit in his arms, how his hands seemed crafted by the most gifted of sculptors. No one could see his hands run along my neck, my shoulders, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, nor how he hesitantly reached to untie the knot that kept his mask secured. I felt my breath catch as Sensei's covering fell away, able to see his face in all its heart-stopping entirety.

Sensei looked at me cautiously, gathering his building materials lest he should have to rebuild the door and padlock, to reassemble the mirror.

"Sensei… what happened to your eye?" I asked quietly, running my fingertips over the thin gash-like scar that could only have resulted from deliberate violence. He merely sighed, closing both eyes, both halves of the scar meeting together to complete the enigmatic puzzle.

"I wasn't always the man you see here. When I was younger I was… reckless. I was respected much the same way I may be now, but for different reasons. Back then I cared for rules and procedures the same way you might idolize friendship, love" – at this he smiled briefly – "and human emotions in general."

At this he stopped; I squeezed his hand, pulling myself closer to him – I could sense that this was part of the poison he suckled in his personal Hell. He took a deep breath and continued, refusing to meet my gaze.

"The people who meant to most to me paid the most for the selfishness I thought was discipline. I got this," he said, pointing to the brutal scar painted across his eye in violent red – "while trying to save my best friend who was dying a slow… painful death. He died shortly after, and all I have left to remember him by is scar tissue," he finished, his voice becoming thick with regret towards the end. His eyes remained clear and dry.

"Most people feel uncomfortable seeing my scars – and I don't blame them – so it's for that reason that I wear a mask. Scars make most new acquaintances, even old friends, skittish. But you don't seem to be too bothered."

"I suppose I'm just a freak of nature, then aren't I?" I asked, hoping that with a smile I could alleviate the cloud of gloom that had settled around him.

Sensei smiled, and for all the trite poetry and near-evangelical love sonnets he had us read, I understood such expressions of comparing one's beloved to the sun. Nothing else I could imagine would be comparable to the brilliant simplicity of my beloved sensei's smile.

Still no one was there to see. No one saw as he drew my face nearer to his, his warm lips molding to mine cautiously, tasting of honey and salt, of sweet bliss and pungent guilt. Even his kiss was meant for me, his mouth seeming to melt with mine exactly as it was meant to, passion and affection perfectly complimenting one another. No one saw; no one would know.

No one but us, two people who were never meant to fall for one another.

"Sakura…" he whispered as he pulled away, his eyes ablaze with contained desire, with the wonder of loving and being loved in return.

I said nothing in reply, hoping that the eager press of my lips against his was reply enough.

Shatter the mirror and scatter the pieces – we've no use for hiding any longer.

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